By Christopher Hunt
NEW YORK – Hempstead senior Donna-Lee Hylton raised her hands in a combination of triumph and exhaustion at the end of the 400 meters.
There’s more than one big star at Hempstead. Hylton won the invitational 400 at the NY Relays in 54.56 at Ichan Stadium on Randalls Island, the eighth-fastest time in the United States this season.
“That felt so good,” she said.”So good. It just felt smooth.”
For Hylton the performance represented a huge breakthrough that seemed to be waiting to happen. To think she almost didn’t make it to the starting line. Hylton said she was still warming up when she saw her race on the track. She rushed over and made it in time compete while the other runners waited and she hurriedly strapped on her spikes.
“I was nervous at first but you know when the gun goes off it’s something different,” she said.
Hylton laid off a strong head wind on the back straight but turned on the burners with 250 left for the win. She also ran leadoff on Hempstead’s winning sprint medley relays. She handed the team a solid leg on the 400-meter leg but a dropped baton on the exchange between Velma Jackson and Asheka Gibson buried star anchor leg Charlene Lipsey in last place and 40 meters behind the pack.
Lipsey erased the deficit in the first 350 and didn’t give the field a chance to come back. Hempstead won in a meet record 4:04.37.
“I was a little scared because I thought I caught up to them too fast and I didn’t want die at the end,” said Lipsey, who anchored in a 2:10 800-meter split. “I just wanted to stay strong and get the win.”
Bronxville junior Henrietta Miers was another runner that started to make her name for herself at the meet. Miers won the 800 in 2:13.40. The junior went from a 3,000-meter runner as recently as last year to becoming one of the leading half-milers in the state. She also ran a 58-second 400 last week.
“She’s a beast,” Bronxville coach Jim Mitchell said.
Turns out that Miers has more speed than even she thought she had but she also realized the toll running with the elevated intensity has on her legs. So to some extent, when she sprinted away from the field in the last 200, she just wanted to get the race over with.
“I was thinking that my legs were hurting and I wanted to finish,” she said. “Everyone was still sort of running together and I figured it was time to try to get away.”
Olivia Bruton, Caitlin Hudson, Miers and Tori Flannery won the 4x800 in 9:44.69. The Broncos also won the 4x1600 relay with Mary Cain, Charlotte Cooley, Amelia Phillips and Flannery in 21:27.15.
Cardozo crushed the field in the 4x400 in 3:45.32, the sixth-fastest time in the country this season. Ahtyana Johnson, Alexis Mapson, Latiesha Philson and Chamique Francis finished nearly nine seconds ahead of the second place finisher, Mount Vernon, which crossed in 3:53.97. The Judges proved to be sharp headed into Penn Relays next week, which none of the group of sophomores and Philson, a freshman, have never competed.
Only Tessa West, who will likely be on the relay that should qualify for the Championship of America, has run at the heralded Franklin Field at the University of Pennsylvania before. Cardozo proved Saturday it had before the depth and the legs to be competitive in what will questionably be a stellar field.
“You’re going out there and you’re going to compete against the best,” Johnson said. “We’re definitely not going to be slacking. Today was good. Everybody ran their best or close to it.”
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.